Journal
NATURE PHOTONICS
Volume 9, Issue 2, Pages 120-125Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/NPHOTON.2014.289
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Funding
- 'Laboratoire d'Excellence Physics Atoms Light Matter' (LabEx PALM) by the French National Research Agency (ANR) [ANR-10-LABX-0039]
- European Union [252781]
- European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) action [CM1204-XUV]
- Triangle de la Physique [2007-010T]
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
- Swedish Research Council (VR) [621-2012-3675, 621-2012-3347]
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Double-slit experiments illustrate the quintessential proof for wave-particle complementarity. If information is missing about which slit the particle has traversed, the particle, behaving as a wave, passes simultaneously through both slits. This wave-like behaviour and corresponding interference is absent if 'which-slit' information exists. The essence of Einstein-Bohr's debate about wave-particle duality was whether the momentum transfer between a particle and a recoiling slit could mark the path, thus destroying the interference. To measure the recoil of a slit, the slits should move independently. We showcase a materialization of this recoiling double-slit gedanken experiment by resonant X-ray photoemission from molecular oxygen for geometries near equilibrium (coupled slits) and in a dissociative state far away from equilibrium (decoupled slits). Interference is observed in the former case, while the electron momentum transfer quenches the interference in the latter case owing to Doppler labelling of the counter-propagating atomic slits, in full agreement with Bohr's complementarity.
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